Susan Parnell ~ Urban Planet

Urban Planet, a new open-access edited volume on sustainable urban development, is launched. The book is a collaborative project within Future Earth and emphasises the need for a new knowledge generation agenda, given the urgency of understanding the sustainability challenges and options for a rapidly urbanising planet.

The urban future is a critical determinant of the viability and vitality of the human endeavour towards a global sustainable future. This centrality of cities to the sustainability of people, planet, and prosperity points to the need for continuous investments in an expanded and flexible urban science and practical knowledge generation that is forged out of innovative interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral understandings of the complex systems that both drive and derive from the prevalence of urban ways of being. Greater understanding of urbanisation processes and the multi-scale interactions and feedbacks with the earth system is required for addressing the complex issues related to urbanization and sustainability, and for aiding in the solutions.

The book aims, therefore, not only to provide a synthesis of existing knowledge across the different disciplines, but also to showcase new ways of producing and integrating knowledge, extending the frontier of urban research, and providing new directions in research and practice that will help us achieve the cities we want now and in the future.

ACC’s Susan Parnell is co-editor of the volume believes the book will be a great resource for ecologists and urbanists, practitioners and policy-maker alike.

Read more (incl.Download the ebook free of charge) – https://www.africancentreforcities.net/urban-planet/ Charles F. Palmer ~ Adventures Of A Slum Fighter (1955 – Full Text)

Charles Forrest Palmer (December 29, 1892 – June 16, 1973) was an Atlanta real estate developer who became an expert on public housing and organized the building of Techwood Homes, the first public housing project in the United States. He would later head up both the newly created Atlanta Housing Authority and the Chamber of Commerce.

About this book – By Beardsley ONE OF THE most glaring obstructions to a better life for millions of our people is the obsolete design and structure of our cities. Already we are acutely aware that the conditions of our metropolitan schools, hospitals, transport and recreation facilities are intolerable. And worst of all are the slums.

That’s why this book interests me so much. It’s the author’s adventures in wiping out slums. These are facts, not theories, because as a practical real-estate man he has done what he writes about. Reading like a novel, this book proves that slums cost us taxpayers more to keep than to clear; that the battle against child delinquency, disease, and vice is the battle against the slum.

The response to these ills of our cities has been wholesale flight from the city itself, but not from the city as such. The city remains “la source” as it has been since time immemorial. Accordingly, the cities will not wither away; they will be rebuilt. The rebuilding of our cities is, therefore, one of the grand projects for the years immediately ahead. The programs will be varied creative and imitative. The emphasis will be here on one objective, there on another.

Where better to start than with the slums! This book of a businessman’s adventures tells what other countries have been doing for years, of the little we have done, and of the big job ahead for all of us.

The book: https://archive.org/adventuresofslum.txt

Report: St. Ann’s ~ Thames ~ 1969 ~ Nottingham Slums

Thames TV’s 1969 documentary on Nottingham’s slums, introduced here by Ray Gosling in 1993.

Housing In Dublin In Sixty Four 1964 Sixty Four: Woman speaking to John O’Donoghue about her move from Dublin city centre to new housing in Finglas.

How do current living and housing conditions in Dublin compare with 1964? The RTÉ television series ‘Sixty Four’ broadcast a report on the housing situation in Ireland’s capital city. How do current living and housing conditions in Dublin compare with 50 years ago? In 1964 RTÉ television series ‘Sixty Four’ broadcast a report on the housing situation in Ireland’s capital city.

In this clip from the programme John O’Donoghue looks at the history of Georgian Dublin. By 1964 many of the Georgian buildings in Dublin city centre, which were built in the 18th century, were falling down, being demolished or both. O’Donoghue remarks “Once the proud townhouses and residences of the wealthy, the decorated ceilings are now falling down.” Many of the landlords of these Georgian buildings claim that the tenants themselves have deliberately damaged the properties in order to get them condemned and moved out to new corporation housing estates in the suburbs.

Go to: http://www.rte.ie/from-georgian-slums-to-the-suburbs-1964/ The Guardian ~ Britain’s Housing Crisis Is So Serious That It Must Be Tackled Now

A boost for childcare in the autumn statement would be a profoundly depressing move. And it will be just as dispiriting if there are new programmes to help low- income families. Not because these measures aren’t to be warmly welcomed: it is just that it will tell you that the chancellor is focused on tinkering rather than boldly tackling the most pressing crisis of the age: housing.

Last week saw several heavyweight reports into Britain’s housing crisis. The Redfern review, detailing the catastrophic slump in home ownership, told us how real house prices have jumped 151% since 1996, while real earnings have risen only about a quarter as much.

The report by the ResPublica thinktank, out the next day, told us how 1.2 million people are languishing on housing waiting lists in England, while more than 6 million face tenure insecurity and no prospect of ever buying their own home.

Lyons Housing Commission reminded us last week how, after decades of failure to build the homes the country needs, public concern about housing is the highest it has been for 40 years.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/britains-housing-crisis

How Public Housing Transformed New York City 1935-67 ~ Part One.

Historian Joel Schwartz takes us on a guided tour of New York City before the NYC Housing Authority razed large swaths of run-down neighborhoods to build public housing projects. These arresting photographs of a long-vanished New York City owe their astonishing detail to the 4×5 inch negatives captured by the NYCHA photographers. Photos are from the NYC Housing Authority collection housed at the La Guardia and Wagner Archives.

Part Two: https://youtu.be/kJ62bxhj3iA